2006 was a hot one in the US

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has compiled the final …

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, better known as NOAA, has among its duties the compilation of weather information for the United States. Its analysis of 2006 is now available and, as the image below should make clear, it was a hot one. The coloring in that image shows that there was little regional variation: every single state checked in as at least above average, with most being "much above average" (indicated by orange).

An earlier analysis had suggested that 2006 would place just below the record set by 1998, but an unusually warm December tipped the scales. NOAA blames December's exceptional warmth on an ongoing El Niño event in the Pacific, which kept Arctic air out of the US. December alone wouldn't have been enough to set an annual record, however, if 2006 weren't already generally hot—NOAA explicitly blames that heat on greenhouse gases. Both factors are likely to keep heating up 2007: El Niño isn't going away immediately, and the generally high temperatures are part of a trend that now puts 16 of the past 25 years onto the list of the top 25 warmest years on record.

In other weather news, the annual survey notes that precipitation was about average nationwide, although that average included regional flooding and droughts. Meanwhile, both tornadoes and hurricanes were down, defying earlier predictions of an active hurricane season. A possible explanation for the unmet expectations came from NOAA itself back in October, when research was announced that suggested that Saharan dust storms can suppress hurricane formation.

NOAA noted that it was in the process of updating the procedure used for analyzing temperatures to bring it in line with recent scientific advances. Although the final procedure won't be used formally until 2007 is analyzed, a preliminary version of the new methods actually placed 2006 just below 1998. None of this may matter this time next year, as the two trends noted above have led the UK's Meteorological Office to predict that 2007 will be the new "warmest ever."